Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Xink]

Another MMO I used to play had forced 15min airship rides between cities as a form of travel. It was immersive, entertaining even, the first few times and you could see real landscapes while flying above. After the 3rd or 4th time it got old and people would not even go up to the top of the ship to look at the view but just afk and wait for it to be over.

After years of playing no one wanted to ride the airships anymore and would rather die and warp to a more convenient location and walk rather than afk for 15min. Years later, the company implemented fast travel and no one rides the airships anymore, unless they're feeling nostalgic.

Immersion is nice and all but not at the expense of player's time. It's supposed to be a game not a chore.

 

[Wotthe Dickens]

Awww I’m disappointed- my mate who I found out was working on cig stuff - I can reveal it was another clarkson advert... not sq42 or anything interesting.
Only tidbits I could garner was that no surprise, cig have extraordinarily non-standard animation rigs, and that they appeared grateful that anyone could work with their data lol.

 

[Frank]

Do what we ED players do when on a trip to Hutton. Just load up a film

The point I'm gonna make reminds me of the time someone copied my homework, and got a better score than me

Star Citizen has the opportunity to fix the mistakes of... <checks overhead for Mods>... other space games. They can make their game better by standing on the shoulders of giants. If they can't do anything about the journey times because that would break the "reality" of the experience then at least they should provide ways to pass the time without leaving the game itself

That video reminds me of the train journey from London to Edinburgh

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The point I'm gonna make reminds me of the time someone copied my homework, and got a better score than me

Ooof, reminds me of my university days. I was more of a hacker than a programmer, my teachers used to make comments about... well, lack of comments, bad variable names, etc. For me programming was an art rather than a science.

So, one day a friend of mine was struggling with an assignment, and asked to borrow my code to see how it worked so he could make his own version. So i flung him a floppy with my code on it.

We get our scores back from the assignment, he had full marks, i got zero. The reason, apparently i copied from the other guy. Unhappy, i went and asked to see his code. It was basically my code 100% with some of the strings and variables renamed and of course, properly commented rather than my usual "Don't ask about this, it just works"

Never let him see my code again.

 

[Surefoot]

Glitches are glitches. I'm sure it's something that they are trying to fix.

They havent been trying to fix the physics engine. Seems like there's code from CRoberts himself in there, and no one dares to touch it. It's been broken since the beginning, and will stay broken forever probably.

The thing which bothers me more about that video is the thing which is working as intended...

Spontaneous Rapid Unplanned Disassembly ? I do not think it's intended. It's a perennial bug though as said above.

How long are the journey times in Star Citizen? (...)

That's an interesting subject to touch given how the design has conflicting approaches. One one hand you have ship quarters, with a lot of (still placeholder) items that are supposed to be used during long travels, even mess halls on bigger ships, so indeed someone thought "we'll have long space travels". On the other hand, you have incredibly short time to kill (compared to the time needed to get out of your chair, go to a repair section, open panels, access items that are supposed to be repaired..) and relatively short travel times (short enough they cannot warrant going to spend time in recreational areas of a ship). Looks like they had one idea at some point, but went with something else. (and no the card game is just a place holder, though there's a ship where you have a chess board that you can manipulate)

 

[Ian Skippy]

But that doesn’t mean absurd comparisons with launched titles (such as Ant’s) suddenly get a free pass. Why should they?

He was making a logical statement. If V says SC isnt a game because [X] and ant can point at acknowledged games that also have [X], then V is proven to be wrong. He didn't say the games were equivalent, or as much fun, or developed the same, or anything like that. He only said that both had X, so if game B is a game, X cannot be an exclusion criteria.

Which is very basic logic, really. The only possible counterarument would be that there is a threshold for number of bugs that would cause a game to stop being a game. Which is pretty silly, so the conclusion is that while SC has bugs, and arguably more than most other games, that itself does not mean SC is not a game.

Which probably makes sense to nearly all but V, who still somehow believes that "being reviewed by IGN" is now a criteria for SC being a game. I suspect most people grasp that 1) SC is a game that 2) is quite buggy and currently not worth reviewing due to the poor state it's in.

There will be a few pro-SC fans simultaneously arguing it's already very much worth it and better than other games, just like V is doing the Don Quixote crusade against gaming labels. However, most people are more sensible and opinions will range from VR Volgots assessment that SC is a game, though a very buggy unfinished one that isn't much fun to the average gamer, but still fun to some, all the way to Mole's assessment SC is a game, though a very buggy unfinished one that isn't much fun to the average gamer but still fun to some.

 

[Viajero]

If V says

Sorry, why am I brought in to this latest incarnation of the "game" discussion I believe I didnt take part in? Linky or quote please?

 

[varonica]

Which probably makes sense to nearly all but V, who still somehow believes that "being reviewed by IGN" is now a criteria for SC being a game. I suspect most people grasp that 1) SC is a game that 2) is quite buggy and currently not worth reviewing due to the poor state it's in.

And here I was thinking it can't be reviewed as a game because it's ALPHA!

Not being reviewed and treated as a game by the gaming media does strongly imply that SC isn't the same as all other "games." If that difference isn't that "it's not a game but a testable Alpha" then why don't the gaming media review it as a game?

 

[Frank]

They havent been trying to fix the physics engine. Seems like there's code from CRoberts himself in there, and no one dares to touch it. It's been broken since the beginning, and will stay broken forever probably.


Spontaneous Rapid Unplanned Disassembly ? I do not think it's intended. It's a perennial bug though as said above.


That's an interesting subject to touch given how the design has conflicting approaches. One one hand you have ship quarters, with a lot of (still placeholder) items that are supposed to be used during long travels, even mess halls on bigger ships, so indeed someone thought "we'll have long space travels". On the other hand, you have incredibly short time to kill (compared to the time needed to get out of your chair, go to a repair section, open panels, access items that are supposed to be repaired..) and relatively short travel times (short enough they cannot warrant going to spend time in recreational areas of a ship). Looks like they had one idea at some point, but went with something else. (and no the card game is just a place holder, though there's a ship where you have a chess board that you can manipulate)

The Spontaneous Rapid Unplanned Disassembly is pretty bad, and the time it's taking to fix them bugs is pretty bad as well... but it was the gameplay I was talking about

It's good to hear that there are placeholders for more things to do while in transit. Card games on a table while flying on a spaceship to another planet would actually be pretty neat. But I'm also hoping that you don't need the presence of other pilots to play these pastime games. The more videos I see of Star Citizen the more convinced I am that it's only fun if there are a whole heap of you playing at the same time

That chess set where you can move the pieces around... does an onboard computer move the opposite pieces around in response?

 

[Skizomeuh]

That chess set where you can move the pieces around... does an onboard computer move the opposite pieces around in response?

Given you're talking about something implemented by CIG, place your bet.

Though also, a certain piece placed in a certain location is meant to unlock a secret cache inside the chariot. So secret it's extensively mentioned in the sale brochure.

 

[Frank]

Given you're talking about something implemented by CIG, place your bet.

Though also, a certain piece placed in a certain location is meant to unlock a secret cache inside the chariot. So secret it's extensively mentioned in the sale brochure.

There's probably a warning in the sales brochure "CAUTION! Moving Queen's Bishop to Queen's Knight Three will cause your ship to explode"

 

[Surefoot]

That chess set where you can move the pieces around... does an onboard computer move the opposite pieces around in response?

Nope it's strictly based on the very twitchy physics engine (and is absolutely terrible in use - forget about playing blitz or any timed game), so 2 players are needed. There's absolutely no AI that would play against you (and move pieces), and generally speaking AI in SC is still what you could find in a quickly slapped together proof of concept from a coding beginner. There are currently 2 "reactive" AIs (enemy ships, and on-foot enemies for FPS missions) and both have serious shortcomings. Then there's the "bartender AI" but that's just a simple script that queues orders (until it crashes). And then every other NPC is purely on rails (and they tend to go off rails and get stuck most of the time).

While place holders may seem nice I'd remind that they have never been replaced to my knowledge, until now.

 

[VR Golgot]

That chess set where you can move the pieces around... does an onboard computer move the opposite pieces around in response?

Nah. It's proper Tier 0. Players can just move the pieces using the clunky UI / placement system. It doesn't look particularly fun to use in vids. (On the plus side the small pieces have never actually clipped through the ship and blown it up though )

As Skiz says you can also place the Queen on 'The Secret Spot' elsewhere and the chess table moves to reveal some secret smuggling tunnels. These are supposed to shield cargo from security scans, and from onboard searches by NPC security. They of course do not do any of that currently . (But they are very reminiscent of Millenium Falcon's smuggling areas, and so sell a lot of ships )

The chess set is very much a 'these things are planned' proof of concept attempt regarding transit activities. Alongside the non-functioning pool tables on various ships etc. And the non-functioning module tinkering that's proposed etc. (Seen most recently in the Hull A's various panels that slide back to reveal the workings behind. Older ships, of course, do not have this functionality, and will need to be refactored...)

 

[VR Golgot]

The only possible counterarument would be that there is a threshold for number of bugs that would cause a game to stop being a game.

Still disagree. Ant's conflation of non-designed factors with designed ones is reductio ad absurdum, just deployed against his own argument. But that's fine, we disagree.

It's just a shame, as always, that it's taken you multiple posts of assuming the worst motives, putting imaginary arguments into people's mouths, and throwing ire around before you could dial back to just having the discussion. But so it goes with you in this thread ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Frank]

Nah. It's proper Tier 0. Players can just move the pieces using the clunky UI / placement system. It doesn't look particularly fun to use in vids. (On the plus side the small pieces have never actually clipped through the ship and blown it up though )

As Skiz says you can also place the Queen on 'The Secret Spot' elsewhere and the chess table moves to reveal some secret smuggling tunnels. These are supposed to shield cargo from security scans, and from onboard searches by NPC security. They of course do not do any of that currently . (But they are very reminiscent of Millenium Falcon's smuggling areas, and so sell a lot of ships )

The chess set is very much 'these things are planned' proof of concept attempt regarding transit activities. Alongside the non-functioning pool tables on various ships etc. And the non-functioning module tinkering that's proposed etc. (Seen most recently in the Hull A's various panels that slide back to reveal the workings behind. Older ships, of course, do not have this functionality, and will need to be refactored...)

The door's rectangle of lasercutting is finished in a shower of sparks. The middle of the door clangs to the floor and Darth Vader steps thru the hole followed immediately by Storm Troopers who flank him with guns drawn. Darth Vader wheezes menacingly and walks over to a chess set. He moves the queen on the board and a secret hatch opens in the floor of the spaceship

"How did you know about the chess set?" Han Solo yells at Darth Vader as he's dragged up in front of him. Darth Vader wheezily holds up an open sales brochure and points out a paragraph to Han

 

[VR Golgot]

Awww I’m disappointed- my mate who I found out was working on cig stuff - I can reveal it was another clarkson advert... not sq42 or anything interesting.
Only tidbits I could garner was that no surprise, cig have extraordinarily non-standard animation rigs, and that they appeared grateful that anyone could work with their data lol.

It's interesting to hear more anecdotals of their rigs being a pain to use though. And that may actually impinge on SQ42.

Their work making a unified 1st/3rd person rig was all done with PU multiplayer benefits in mind. It's a pain to use in general it seems. And when deployed in a cinematic story mode must be a nightmare, given you're going through all that pain without getting any of the benefits.

If all of this tinkering has caused downstream issues for NPC animation too, on top of the apparent struggles they've had with ageing mocap data etc, then no wonder the opus is somewhat delayed...

 

[VR Golgot]

For a daily dose of copium

In theory all the streaming changes are indeed groundwork for 'Static Server Meshing'. So he ain't wrong there. But the leap from 'Port Olisar keeps disappearing' to 'Pyro / Javelin / gold passes next' is super cute yeah

I liked this guy's wake me when it's in the PU approach

So if I go back a year, they were working on server meshing.
If I look at the notes for 3.17, I can see that they are working on server meshing.

I have no idea what their progress is... they don't tell us. I know only what gets released and what doesn't.... and right now, 3.17 does not include server meshing (that is to say we log into a server and remain on that server and interact only with people on that server in any non-background way).

The next step was to move entity replication into a central place where we can control the streaming and network-bind logic. This then allows us to replicate the network state to multiple server nodes. In order to achieve this, we had to move the streaming and replication logic out of the dedicated server into the "Replication" layer, which now hosts the network replication and entity-streaming code.

Let's use this first one as an example.

They took what I must infer was distributed entity management and put it in a central place... though they are not clear on what that entails. Are they saying that all entities are now "source of truth" in a location shared by all shards (IOW, a shared datastore)? OK. Was this complete? was this completed for all entities? If not, are the remainder not needed or still outstanding? Are there issues with reading from and updating this? Or is the "central place" over and done?

Then the streaming and replication logic was moved from (what, a single server? a single server per shard) into a "layer"; which I assume is a cloud of server resources? Cool. Is that now complete, or is it ongoing?

What percentage of the work toward sever meshing actually performing its main function (allowing players and items to move across servers seamlessly) is done and working? How far are we from actual implementation?

I'm reminded of the old resume advice... "Single handedly managed the successful upgrade and deployment of new environmental illumination system with zero cost overruns and zero safety concerns"... which is how to describe "I changed a lightbulb".

I'm not accusing CIG of intentionally similar behavior; but I am saying that this list of progress isn't particularly useful to the audience in question (and if you are about to say it's just me and I don't understand it, then answer my question above).

 

[Ian Skippy]

Still disagree. Ant's conflation of non-designed factors with designed ones is reductio ad absurdum, just deployed against his own argument. But that's fine, we disagree.

It's just a shame, as always, that it's taken you multiple posts of assuming the worst motives, putting imaginary arguments into people's mouths, and throwing ire around before you could dial back to just having the discussion. But so it goes with you in this thread ¯\(ツ)/¯

Unfortunately that is what it takes to get peope to concede basic points like "Is V wrong when saying SC isnt a game?". V was wrong, obviously so, but it takes a bunch of people to explain it over and over before people here concede that 'one of us' is wrong. And then it is still immediately switched to "yeah but your tone...". and "Ant is still also wrong...".

Maybe try to be as critical of all posts rather than "the opposition" and you'll find discussion goes much smoother. That is, if discussion about a game is what people want, rather than the tribalistic mud slinging that seems to be the default.

Happy Easter!

 

[Viajero]

"Is V wrong when...

Lol, you keep quoting me, but as far as I remember I have not partaken in this latest bout of "is it a game" discussion no?

 

[VR Golgot]

Unfortunately that is what it takes to get peope to concede basic points like "Is V wrong when saying SC isnt a game?". V was wrong, obviously so, but it takes a bunch of people to explain it over and over before people here concede that 'one of us' is wrong. And then it is still immediately switched to "yeah but your tone...". and "Ant is still also wrong...".

Maybe try to be as critical of all posts rather than "the opposition" and you'll find discussion goes much smoother. That is, if discussion about a game is what people want, rather than the tribalistic mud slinging that seems to be the default.

Happy Easter!

Nope. The tribalism was, yet again, in your mind. And by assuming as a first principle that it is base tribalism underpinning an argument, you ironically introduce its worst facets into the debate.

Just as when you called people in the thread sad mediocre bungholes because you decided this perfectly reasonable post was equivalent to "attacking, mocking, insulting or ridiculing fellow gamers". Ironic .

Just as you did when you decided that people were saying 'SC fans are evil, stupid, insane', even though nobody was, and used that as grounds to compare the posters here to racists. Absurd, unwarranted, and needlessly offensive.

And these are far from the only examples of you doing this.

You are not the antidote to tribalism in this thread that you believe yourself to be. You are an agent of it. And demonstrably so.